


Irritated Flame

by saruma_aki



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Ezekiel-centric, Feels, Gen, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Kleptomania, Shame, Stealing, it's super vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 19:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13083801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saruma_aki/pseuds/saruma_aki
Summary: There's a shame in what he did, in how his brain worked, in how he felt, in how he lived. There was a shame in the burn inside of him and the itch that never left until it was scratched, until he tore the skin off and let it bleed. There was so much shame, but he couldn't stop--he just couldn't.





	Irritated Flame

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, wow, this is my first fic for The Librarians. I'm actually posting this while watching the new episode which is also why I rushed to post this because, hey, wow, Ezekiel's mum--or, at least, who he calls mum--is in the new episode, so I wanted to have this out before the episode finished.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

It started as a means to survive.

Coming from a place where your floor was cement covered with a barely present scrap of fabric, where the bed you slept on sometimes was the same as where your feet just padded through, cheek pressed against dirtied fabric, the clothes on your back serving as both your blanket and outfit for the day to come—it had been to survive.

When kids tugged at the scraps of his clothes or pointed out the smudged dirt on his cheeks or the scuffed nature of the knees of his pants, the fraying hem of the legs of his pants, it made the need all that much more prudent. He couldn’t be expected to live like this. He could put up with the sneers and the laughter, or he could put up with hard cement and spending the night getting wet, moving their home from place to place because someone with a solid roof and tile floors didn’t like seeing their fabric made house in the shrouded depths of an unused alleyway behind a dumpster.

He couldn’t do both.

He couldn’t bear to watch as some rude teenager took a knife to the thin roof of his home and carved it open just because they could, just because their own roof couldn’t be ruined by the blade of a three inch switch, and watch them turn around and meet his gaze and sneer, telling him to tell his parents to get some fucking jobs or get the hell out of dodge. He couldn’t deal with the ashen looks on the faces of his parents, especially as they considered their other options. It was dangerous to sleep on the streets, more so even without the protection their tent offered them from the critters around here.

So, one day, as he trudged home from the school he attended, the one he most likely wouldn’t return to come the next year, he took a woman’s lip gloss as he walked by her purse. It was such a small thing, inconsequential, but he had done it—had gotten away with it.

He had tucked it into his pocket and kept walking.

 

 

 

His father left after a few years. To where, he wasn’t sure. He had just up and left after dropping him and his mother off at a shelter, disappearing during the night. They had waited for him to return for what felt like an eternity but had only been a few days.

He didn’t turn up.

He held his mom in his arms as she cried and bid farewell to a childhood that never was, gangly, prepubescent limbs clinging to her and letting her feel for just a bit while he sequestered that part of himself away.

A body turned up on the shores of the beach about a week later.

He made sure his mother didn’t see any of the news stations as he helped her get ready to attempt to find another job, hoping against hope that this would be the one that stuck.

It never was, though.

 

 

 

The next time the urge came, he had been sitting on the stoops of the public library, wondering what he was expected to do. You couldn’t get a job nowadays without some kind of education or discipline. Or they required a place of residence. Or they needed references. Or proof of citizenship. Or some other load of bull that prevented people like him from being able to get a job.

The stoops were an easy place for him to be. No one wondered why he looked as he did because plenty of kids played in the grass plains by the library, enjoying a good game of some kind—names he couldn’t remember since he never got to partake. No one bothered him because it was public property and maybe he was waiting for someone or maybe he was just enjoying the weather. It was a safe place to be.

A group of boys walked by, talking animatedly amongst themselves. They hurried up the steps, each one carrying a bag of what was probably schoolwork. He couldn’t relate to the stress of school himself. He hadn’t returned, just as he had expected, instead helping his mom out by trying to find a job, taking whatever money was offered here and there.

It was easier that way.

School was six hours away from the prospect of jobs, a liability he couldn’t afford.

When the boys walked out an hour later, he found himself rising, walking past them, fingers slipping into the pocket of one of the bags, tucking his prize close to his chest to shield it from sight, walking around the library and hiding behind it, only then pausing to look at what he held in his hands. A water bottle, a reusable one, full practically all the way with the clear liquid. He uncapped it, sliding down the wall behind him as he took a sip, eyelids fluttering as the cool liquid ran down his throat, making his body almost tremble in delight.

He didn’t question the urge that had popped up to take something from the four boys when he had first seen them. It was water. Water was vital for life. It was for survival. They could get water anywhere. He couldn’t—and he certainly had nowhere to store whatever water he could get.

Until now.

He sipped at the liquid until a quarter of it rested in his stomach and the sun was setting in the sky before tucking the bottle close to him after screwing on the lid, rising and making his way back to the shelter.

 

 

 

His mother finally got a job.

It wasn’t a good one, necessarily, but with the money made from it, she could purchase a broken down trailer in the trailer park on the outskirts of the city. Food was still scarce, but having a roof that didn’t cave to the whims of a three inch blade and was theirs was an invigorating experience, made his mouth open in awe every time he opened his eyes and saw it above him.

He was thirteen years of age and, at long last, he had a solid roof over his head.

He still slept on the floor, but that was okay. It wasn’t made of cement. Besides, his mother was the one working. She needed the bed more than he did.

Her hours were long, though, and he often found himself coming home to an empty metal cavity, curling up on a corner of the floor, hoping against hope that nothing would bite him in the middle of the night, and falling asleep, startling awake when his mom stumbled in hours later.

He filled their little home with mindless things he found—stole, really. A coaster on the counter, a set of old keys turned into a wind chime resting on the window. It was just small things that would bring a smile to his mother’s face for a few seconds and would quell the urge inside of him, pride rising in his chest because he could do this for her.

 

 

 

This stupid urge, he cursed in his mind, fingers twitching where they were shoved deep into his pockets. He had been fighting it for the last few years, since his mother passed. There wasn’t any need to steal anything because there was no one to bring joy to anymore. But the urge just got worse and worse, making him irritable.

The gloss on his lips felt sticky, just adding to the thickness in his mouth, making his insides churn. He pushed the bile down, determinedly making his way back to the trailer he called home, filled with the little gifts he used to surprise his mother with. He needed the money in order to keep the trailer. That unfortunately came at a price when you didn’t really exist.

It meant he couldn’t get a regular job, couldn’t make money the regular way. Even if he did exist, though, he wouldn’t be able to apply. He didn’t even finish school.

He sat on the edge of the mattress heavily, looking down at his hands, at the lines on his palms. He looked at the green of his veins and the tan hue to his skin. He looked at them long and hard, lips pursed, mind racing. The itch in his fingertips didn’t cease no matter how much he willed it to, no matter how much he wanted it to, remaining steadfastly and making every day a nightmare.

But why was he even stopping himself?

There wasn’t anyone to impress, but he had enjoyed the feeling he got from succeeding just as much as he enjoyed the sight of his mother’s smile. Why had he stopped? Why should he stop? If he could just adjust it from meaningless trinkets to things of actual value, he could stop having to stand under streetlights, looking pretty, and digging his nails into his palms when a car pulled close.

He didn’t have to stop himself. He shouldn’t have to stop himself.

He just had to not get caught.

He could do that.

_He could do that._

 

 

 

They didn’t understand.

The room they put him in was dark with no exits or entrances outside of the single door. There were no windows and the only additional thing to the room was the cot pressed into the back wall. There he sat, looking down at the floor, at his scuffed boots. His fingers twitched and itched, made his mind able to only focus on one thing and that was the next score, the next thing he’d be able to take. He needed to do something.

It felt like he was going insane.

He shoved his hands under his thighs, leg bouncing, trying to quell the anxiety that had been building inside of him for the last few days, pressing burned finger pads against the fabric of the cot. His tongue ran along the edges of his recently filed teeth, wanting to bite down on the muscle, let his mouth fill with the metallic liquid—maybe make enough of a scene that they would let him out.

His gaze flickered around the walls, taking in their smooth nature, but they also somehow seemed warped to his eyes, making alarm fill him and forcing his eyes shut if only to block out the disorienting visual.

“Look alive, agent,” a voice called after what seemed like hours. He wasn’t sure how long had passed, his sense of time all but lost, every sense trained on keeping the itch at bay. “We’ve got a job for you.”

 

 

 

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see—couldn’t _think_.

His heart was lodged in his throat, chest heaving, a thin sheen of sweat cooling on his body, making him shiver despite the heat filling him, mixing in with the panic, making his senses tie up in a knot in his head, leaving him unable to tell up from down or the smell of mango from that of oranges. The sheets were tangled around his legs, restricting their jerking movement, leaving the limbs twitching sporadically, completely useless.

His ears rang with the phantom sound of gunfire, his eyes scanning his room frantically as he blindly pawed at the bedside table, turning on the light of lamp as his fingers finally closed around the small knob, breath coming out in harsh rasps that he could barely hear but could feel as they rattled out his chest and scraped up his abused throat, lips dry and chapped.

His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, thick and numb, of no use to him as he tried to form silent words, his limbs pinned to the bed outside of the little twitches here and there that made the muscles seize and his eyes flicked around the room in wild panic once more, fingers curling in the fabric of his pillow as he tugged one around to hug to his chest, settling another one behind him, pressing the soft cushion to his abdomen as he inhaled shakily, trying valiantly to hold back the urge to vomit that continued to rise in him steadily.

His fingers shook as he reached for his phone, clicking on the screen and looking at the time. It was only two in the morning, he noted absentmindedly, but the connotations behind being awake at that time didn’t really hit him. He untangled himself from his sheet with trembling fingers, clutching the pillow tightly to his chest still as he made his way around his room, flicking on every light, going so far as to turn on every light outside of his room the panic in him receding just a bit once everything was bathed in the artificial light, not a single thing hidden by the darkness of shadow.

He shuffled back to his room, to the slight comfort of the bed, sitting on the now cool sheets and tucking his toes under the folds of the comforter, wrapping both arms now around the pillow, phone clasped in one clammy hand, eyes still wild, harm mussed, the creases from the pillow he had slept on still imprinted on his face. He felt tacky from the sweat, but didn’t dare venture to the bathroom and relinquish his hold on his pillow to shower, to feel the thin lines of pressure pelt his body like shells hitting bullet resistant vests as shouts rose up around him, as he was shoved and moved, as his fingers remained steady while he grabbed what he was ordered to, desire quenched for the time being, but the reprieve from the urge just threw into stark clarity the reality of the situation around him, making every little thing sharper and more real.

He trembled in his seat, looking around the room again, fingers clenching and releasing the fabric of the pillow, breath shuddering out of him, swallowing thickly even as he felt like he couldn’t quite keep down even the slightest bit of saliva, like he was about to hurl everything he had managed to eat for dinner.

He was fairly certain that it was only the fear of convulsions afterwards that kept the food at bay. It would make things worse if he were to end up on the bathroom floor, muscles seizing, knees aching from being pressed into the hard and unforgiving tile, cold fingers gripping the ceramic of the toilet bowl hard as he retched, ribs aching, intestines twisting and churning and making it so much harder to function, tears springing into his eyes and blurring the images before him.

He pushed the thought away, pursing his lips and looking down at the fabric of the pillow, at the folds his grip on it caused.

He looked down at it and breathed, spending the better part of the next three hours calming down, letting his heart slow and his breathing lessen in its raggedness, letting the grip of the memories on him loosen, knowing he would have to get up and do the same thing that sent him into such a fit in just a few short hours.

He looked down and breathed, straightening only when the knock on the hotel room door told him it was time to get ready to work, whether he wanted to or not.

He was fine, he told himself, hoping against hope that one of these days he would believe it.

He was fine.

 

 

 

Having friends was a weird feeling, he concluded, watching them move around the area in front of him, discussing quietly amongst themselves about little details in whatever book they were poring over. It was like having little waves of warmth that washed over him whenever one of them was nearby, whenever one of them smiled at him. And it was like having little cubes of ice dropped down his pants every time one of them was upset with him.

His gaze flickered over them for a moment, looking down at his phone, feeling the hairclip in his pocket as he shifted, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, fingers tapping away on the screen. It was a fortunate thing that Cassandra hadn’t even noticed it was missing yet, too absorbed in her work.

He had thought that things would get better with this job, but he wasn’t allowed to steal anything of value anymore, nothing that was of any use to him, but the urge wasn’t born out of use or money. It was born out of need and, despite everything, he still _needed_.

His mind was plagued with memories of the weight of a gun in his hand, of being fully conscious and aware when he was an agent as his mouth was held open and the defining characteristics of his teeth scratched away, of watching half rabid people attack his friends, listening to the echo of their shouts as he stood frozen, unable to move—helpless to do anything but watch.

If any of them screamed, it sent him back to those nightmarish days when he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get them out alive. If he ended up with a gun in his grasp, he would be right back to his days in MI6, gritting his teeth against the pain as he infiltrated place after place, stealing what he was ordered to. If it was dark and quiet, he was right back to that room with its warping walls and the sole door, sitting on the cot and praying for someone—anyone—to come and open it, for good or bad reasons. If he lay on the ground, he was thirteen again, staring up at the metal ceiling of the trailer his mom poured all her energy into saving enough to buy.

The memories made the urge worse, but he had to control it. Now he did have a reason to control it. They knew him as a thief—former, in their eyes—who stole for profit and just because he could. They didn’t know that every second he didn’t nick something was a second holding back the strong compulsion that threatened to overcome him some days.

They thought he was reformed, that it was all fun and games and that he could stop.

He didn’t want to imagine their faces when they realized that he couldn’t.

The time he spent with them he valued. He didn’t want to see the disappointment return to their eyes if they were find out that he still stole—that he stole from _them._

“Have you guys seen my watch?” Flynn asked as he all but flew down the stairs, Eve right on his heels, the speed they were moving at alarming, but there were smiles on their faces which assuaged whatever anxiety had settled in his chest, making him lean back in his seat.

“Nah, mate—it’s always on you,” he responded simply, scrolling down on his phone.

“Maybe you left it in the lab?”

Flynn frowned a bit before shrugging. “That’s fine. I’ll look for it later. We’ll be back in a bit.”

“How long’s a bit,” Jacob halted them, brow furrowed, finger pressed on the page he was reading, holding his place. The two paused by the door, Eve looking down at her phone in contemplation.

“Three hours, give or take fifteen minutes.”

Jacob nodded, expression smoothing out and being replaced by a smile. “Have fun,” he called, watching them bound out the door before looking over at him and Cassandra with his eyebrows a bit raised. “What do you think that was about?”

“An unplanned date night, probably,” he responded with, pushing himself to his feet, sauntering over to them.

Cassandra fluttered about excitedly, a smile on her face. “Where do you think they’re going? Gosh, they’re so cute,” she gushed. “Don’t you guys think so?” She looked at them expectantly and Jacob and he exchanged a look, neither one of them sure how to reply. Jacob settled for nodding with an awkward sort of grin while he simply shrugged, pocketing his phone.

“Are you guys going to be doing,” he looked down at the book and the ancient script in a language that was clearly not English, “whatever this is all night?”

Jacob looked down at the book, looking over at Cassandra, clearly unsure. He took the moment where they were considering what to do in order to snag the paperweight they were using, an almost unconscious move, shoving it in his pocket as he rounded the table.

“Is that a yes?”

“I think we’ll be here a few more hours, probably. Why?”

“Well, Flynn and Eve aren’t going to be back soon, so I was going to order something to eat and maybe pop by the lab. You guys want anything?”

“Oh,” Cassandra jumped up. “We can go pick some up together. I could go for some Chinese.”

“What about you, cowboy,” he called over, watching Jacob stretch his arms over his head.

“I’m good with Chinese. Let me go ask Jenkins if that’s okay with him.”

The duo nodded, watching the Southerner set off down the hall and to the lab, waiting patiently by the table. Cassandra was humming a soft tune under her breath, fingers fiddling with each other as the toe of her foot scuffed the floor.

He felt himself finally able to relax, the weight in his pocket alleviating the weight on his shoulders, the itch put to rest for a bit, something like pride filling him at the knowledge that he had once again managed to take care of the urge without getting caught. He shoved his hands in his pockets, watching as Cassandra broke out of the tune she was humming at the sudden movement, looking over at him and smiling.

“What were you guys even working on?”

Cassandra’s red curls bounced as she immediately launched into an explanation of her and Jacob’s little project, her explanation riddled with terms he didn’t really understand, but he nodded and tried to listen till Jacob came back with Jenkins in tow to tell them that he was tagging along since he didn’t trust them to get his order right.

He laughed at that, bumping his shoulder against Jenkins’ lightly.

He set the paperweight on one of the far tables on the way out, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out.

This was fine.

 

 

 

Every time he walked into his apartment he found himself being glad that he hadn’t disclosed his address to any of them. The space was relatively neat, sparsely decorated, but everything in it was a stolen good. His living room didn’t hold much in terms of belongings, thankfully—a last ditch effort to preserve his secret should any of his friends discover where he lived.

He sighed, dragging his feet as he stumbled into his room, looking at the area with a slight pang of guilt and embarrassment.

His little cup of pens was stolen, each pen inside of it also of the same nature, thoroughly wiped down and clean, but still not his. They had each been Eve’s at one point, back when Flynn’s desk had still been his and everything was always being reverted back to disarray. It had provided an adequate cover for him to nick one every day for two weeks.

The bookcase it rested on was also stolen from one of the cases they had worked. He had to pose as a truck driver and the truck he had been driving was a furniture one. Every piece of furniture had been left in a storage unit that he had returned to later and shipped to his apartment. None of it was his, but the itch had left for weeks after that score, had let him feel normal around his friends.

Jacob’s old phone, one he thought he had lost on one of their little trips, was resting on the bookshelf on top of the books, water-logged as it was. He had pulled it from his pocket after they had ended up taken an unplanned and unwanted swim.

He dropped his coat on the foot of his bed, looking down at the bedclothes. He had grabbed them from a hotel room the last time he had stayed in one—not checked out in his name, of course—smuggled them out in his bag after his work was done.

The whole thing was embarrassing, he concluded every time he looked about his room, shame clawing at his insides, but he really couldn’t help it. Calling the urge an itch was being polite. It was more of a flame inside of him that burned hotter with every second that he ignored it, scorching him from the inside out until it was almost unbearable and he would be vibrating in place with the sheer amount of _need._

Letting out a long breath, he carded his fingers through his hair, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes, inhaling shakily. He swallowed thickly, told himself it was all fine. It was good. He was doing alright.

He had hidden it for this long, right?

He could do this.

He dragged his fingers down his cheeks, looking around at his room.

He looked at Eve’s pens, Jacob’s phone, and Jenkins’ evaporation dish. He dug out Cassandra’s hairclip from his pocket, tossing onto the bed next to him. He looked at Flynn’s watch resting on his desk.

The shame spread inside of him, making his toes tingle and his skin feel too small.

_He could do this._

 

 

 

“I cannot believe that I lost my tie of all things,” Flynn grumbled as he looked under the table, crawling under it and knocking away Jacob’s feet as he surged up on the other side, looking disgruntled, the top few buttons of his shirt undone, and his hair in a disarray.

“You’re telling me. I can’t find my gloves.”

“Mates, just buy some new ones,” he groaned as he leaned back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the table, twirling his phone in his fingers. Eve promptly came over and shoved his feet off the surface, whirling his chair around.

“You haven’t seen our stuff here, have you?”

He looked at her, waiting a suitable amount of time before putting on an affronted expression. “No, I haven’t. Why would I have?” It technically wasn’t a lie. He hadn’t seen their stuff here. He had seen it outside of this room on cases.

“Well,” Cassandra piped up from where she was helping Jacob and Flynn looked, Jenkins beside her, “you are the only thief here.”

“And have you _seen_ the stuff I’ve stolen? Do you think I’d really be wasting my time on stuff like this?”

“Well,” Eve shrugged and he glared at her automatically.

“How much is Flynn’s tie worth? How much are Stone’s gloves worth?”

Eve sighed, straightening up and looking over at the others. “Alright, I see your point. Can you at least help look?”

“I already did,” he grumbled, staring exasperatedly up at the ceiling. He shoved away the feelings of guilt building inside of him. “They’re not here.”

Cassandra came over to stand by him, shoulders slumped in defeat. “Maybe just by new ones,” she repeated his suggestion from earlier, wincing a bit even as she said the words. They watched as both Flynn and Jacob stopped, slowly turning to look at the trio, Jenkins standing to the side with a look of profound exasperation.

He closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief as the two finally acquiesced, trying to not let the feeling of sickness overpower him as he looked up at the ceiling. His heart beat slowed with each second that passed and by the time he averted his gaze from the domed ceiling, the others had already moved on to the next thing, figuring out what they were going to do next.

He sighed, looking down at his hand where it held his phone.

He wished he could stop.

He really did.

 

 

 

His room was his cell, he decided, sitting atop the bed sheets, pillows propped up behind him, his laptop resting on his thighs as he typed away on it, chewing on his bottom lip.

It was lined with all the things that weren’t his but made him feel good in the moment and like the world’s worst person the next. He had taken to going out more into the streets, trying to quell the need outside of the reaches of his friends so that he would stop taking from them. They were getting to suspicious and he didn’t want to see their faces morph into ones of scorn and disappointment and anger. He didn’t want to witness that.

He wouldn’t be able to bear it.

He pretended that Jenkins’ curious looks didn’t exist every time he went out the door for fifteen minutes without any reason to do so, returning with the same easy grin but a slight slump to his shoulders that he could only barely pick up on. He pretended that Jacob didn’t look at him oddly every time he would suddenly excuse himself from whatever conversation they were having, Cassandra’s eyes following him while Jacob would let out a sigh. He pretended that it didn’t feel like whatever little thing he had just snagged off a person on the street wasn’t burning a brand into his skin every time Eve looked at him afterwards.

He kept pretending and pretending and _pretending_ , focusing on the goal, the prime directive, the whole reason he was bothering to pretend.

They could _not_ find out.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you guys thought down below! <3


End file.
